IPO Lawyers and the Life Sciences Issuer: 22.5% of Equity Offerings

Firms that hire IPO lawyers are, more often than the title suggests, hiring for life sciences companies. Sartori & Partners data show that pharma and biotech issuers account for 22.5% of the 11,313 dated equity offering deals recorded over 3 years, 2.4 times the share of banks and financial institutions, the next industry on the list. The lawyers who do this work form a distinct group inside capital markets: equity offerings and IPOs make up 36.8% of the practice's lateral moves, and they sit in New York more heavily than the practice does. Their number has not grown. Over the settled 12 months, lateral hiring in the specialty held flat (-5.1%), at 240 moves against 253. A firm that wants a life sciences equity bench will take it from a pool that already exists, not from new supply.

The issuer mix is narrow at the top. After pharma and biotech come banks and financial institutions at 9.4%, technology and software at 7.8%, and medical devices at 3.9%. In the Sartori & Partners lateral database, pharma and biotech issuers stand behind 2,549 equity deals over 3 years, against 1,063 for banks. Drug developers fund research through repeated raises: initial listings, follow-on offerings, registered direct deals and at-the-market programs. Each of those is a mandate, and the same company can come back to market several times in a year. For a firm, the consequence is plain. A partner with a record of offerings for life sciences issuers brings clients that return; a partner whose equity work came mostly from other sectors brings a smaller slice of the deal flow.

Equity offerings were 34.0% of the 12,366 dated capital markets deals in the last 12 months, about a third of the volume. Across all of those deals, pharma and biotech is 13.9% of the count and banks 13.5%, almost level. In equity work the pharma and biotech share runs 8.6 points above its share of capital markets deals, and banks sit 4.1 points below theirs. The equity figures cover 3 years and the capital markets figures 12 months, so the comparison reads the direction of the gap rather than its last decimal.

The wider deal count moved up. The capital markets deal count rose 10.0% year on year, 12,698 deals against 11,541 in the prior 12 months. The two halves of the practice serve different issuers. A debt capital markets partner whose clients are mostly banks is not a substitute for an equity partner with biotech clients, and a firm that treats capital markets as one hire will often fill the wrong seat.

Over 12 months, 235 lawyers in equity offerings and IPOs moved laterally, into 113 hiring firms. On the settled windows, hiring in the specialty held flat (-5.1%), 240 moves against 253. Capital markets as a whole held flat (+6.7%), 609 moves against 571, while the full lateral market rose 9.0%, 14,305 against 13,128. Partner hiring in the specialty held flat (-18.1%): 86 partners against 105, a gap that counts this small do not separate from chance. Sartori & Partners data therefore show a specialty where demand on the deal side moved and the supply of movers did not. A firm adding equity capacity competes with every other firm for a pool that has not expanded, and should plan a search measured in months, with a fallback candidate at counsel level.

New York received 26.8% of lateral moves in equity offerings over 12 months, against 14.8% of the whole market: an index of 181, or 1.8 times the market's share. Capital markets as a practice sits at 169 in New York, so equity work is the more New York-bound part of it. London runs the other way, at an index of 102 for equity offerings against 119 for the practice.

The 3-year view confirms the pattern and adds one city. Hong Kong took 6.3% of equity offering moves over 3 years, against 3.5% for capital markets, which fits an exchange that lists many issuers from mainland China and the region. San Francisco, close to the venture-backed companies that later list, took 4.2% against 2.9%. Equity lawyers also move city a little more often: 22.7% of moves with both cities known involved a relocation, against 20.5% market-wide. The search for a life sciences equity partner starts in New York; a London search draws on a thinner pool relative to the practice, and an Asia mandate points to Hong Kong.

Partners made up 36.6% of equity offering lateral moves over 12 months, against 31.5% in capital markets and 27.7% across the market. Firms of 1,000+ lawyers made 65.8% of the hires, against 53.6% for the market. The top 10 hirers took 29.9% of moves, against 25.0% in the practice and 12.9% across all practices. Latham & Watkins ranked first among hirers, followed by Greenberg Traurig and White & Case.

The two lists overlap only in part. Latham & Watkins heads the deal list and the hiring list. Davis Polk & Wardwell, second on deals, does not appear among the top 10 hirers, and neither does Ellenoff Grossman & Schole. The deal list shows where issuer relationships sit today; the hiring list shows who is adding lawyers to win more of them. A firm of 400-999 lawyers or smaller that bids for an equity partner will meet the large firms on most shortlists, and should expect to compete on platform and client conflicts as much as on pay.

Write the brief around the issuer, not the product. With pharma and biotech at 22.5% of equity offering deals, the useful question for a candidate is how many life sciences offerings they ran and for which kind of company, from clinical-stage listings to follow-ons for commercial-stage issuers. Recruit in New York first, where the specialty hires at an index of 181; treat London as a smaller pool and Hong Kong as the Asian market. Budget time: hiring held flat (-5.1%) while the capital markets deal count grew, so every candidate will have more than one option. Consider the step-up hire: 14.9% of equity offering moves came with a higher title, against 12.9% across the market, and a senior associate or counsel from a deal-heavy firm can become the partner a smaller firm cannot buy. Building inside is slower. Equity lawyers promoted over 5 years made partner at a median of 10.0 years from their first year of practice, with the middle half between 9.0 years and 12.0 years. Firms also compete with live openings: 206 equity offering roles were posted on law-firm career pages on the data date, so a candidate who is looking is seldom looking only at you.